It never rains but pours in global health. After a few years of lamenting that there really is no journal for a lot of good research that gets done in our discipline – whatever that is – in the next few months we will see the entry of 2 new kids on the block.

First, the Lancet, the world’s oldest medical journal, will be launching a new open-access, peer-reviewed online journal simply called The Lancet Global Health.

Second, USAID and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs will next week launch a new journal called Global Health: Science and Practice, which will also be open-access, peer-reviewed online journal. According to its website the journal “aims to improve health practice, especially in low- and middle-income countries”. Sounds promising.

Both seem to be a big departure from the medical journal model of publishing, which is great, and emphasize things that were not well covered or hard to publish in other journals, which is also great.

On a related note, I also think that the editorial changes at Health Policy & Planning that were announced a while back have already strengthened the quality of papers coming out there, so kudos to the editors.